The Artificer
by OlorinTheMaiar
Summary: Harry Potter, Master of Death and creator of magical artifacts, is drafted to help recover one of his creations, the Tesserract
1. Boom

**A/N: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe. I do not make any money from this.**

**The Artificer**

**Ch. 1 Boom**

Lord Hadrian "Call-Me-Harry-Damn-it!" James Potter-Black, Twelfth Baron of Founder's Grange, and Theodore Remus Lupin-Black, Lord Hadrian's adoptive son and heir, occupants of the penthouse of number 955 5th Ave, New York City, were proud to say that they were _not_ normal, thank you very much. They were the first people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they were most likely the source of anything strange or mysterious that happened in the building. It was not the fact that both residents were wizards that caused them to be the source of all things odd in the building, for all the residents in number 955 were well-to-do families of witches and wizards; nor was it the fact that Harry was part of a country's peerage, for number 5A was the residence of a lesser Lord of the Italian House of Doria-Pamphilj-Landi and the lost Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia lived in Apartment 11B with Peter Jones, her husband of eighty two years and the building's former doorman.

No, what set the two Blacks apart from the rest of the building was that they couldn't just relax and enjoy their wealth. Harry had tried to settle down after he had almost single-handedly stopped the Second Blood War of wizarding Britain, but he had found that he was monumentally bored. Even transplanting himself and his adoptive son to the New York City apartment building he had inherited from his Godfather when he became the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black could curtail his boredom. It was only after a chance run-in with the United States premier wandmaker, Anderson Calhoun, while shopping in New York's magical shopping district, the Central Park Bazaar, that Harry was introduced to his current profession: Artificing, the creation of unique magical objects. While the occupants of number 955 were very supportive of Lord Potter-Black's profession (if only for the fact that it produced numerous priceless Christmas gifts), the stigma attached to a "blue-collar Lord" and the muffled explosions that regularly shook the penthouse caused Harry, and in turn Teddy, to be labeled as odd.

So when a slightly larger than normal explosion shook number 955 one summer afternoon, it was summarily ignored by the residents.

* * *

Harry was almost finished. For the past four months, the artificer had been working on developing a device that would be able to project pensieve memories so that they would be able to be experienced by a jury during court. While originally, Harry had thought the project to be a simple case of creating a rune matrix that projected the memory into the minds of the viewers, he had quickly found out that this was going to be a much more labor intensive project. At the test of his initial design, he had found himself trapped for two and a half weeks in a looping memory of the disastrous Yule Ball from his fourth year. He was only able to free himself from the furious glare of his former date, Pavarti Patil, when the magical battery powering his prototype had run itself out. Now, he had nearly finished his second attempt. Instead of broadcasting the memory into the minds of the viewers, it transformed the memory into auditory and visual impulses which was then induced into viewers optic and cochlear nerves to simulate the memory without the disconcerting feeling of falling head first into what looks like a bowl of silver snot.

With steady hands, Harry affixed the magnifying lens in place and picked up a magically reinforced copper engraving tool to carve the final rune. The mirror-like surface of the obsidian pyramid before him was only marred by the minuscule writing of the complex runic array. Like most of the artifacts Harry created, the pensieve viewer was as beautiful as it was useful. Once completed and activated, the runic array would move, the lines of script flowing in and out of its patterned array. One day, feeling unusually poetic, he had likened the prospective movement of the engravings to the movements of the planets as they danced to the celestial music composed by the laws of the universe… not that he would ever admit to making such an observation.

With a deep breath to calm any trembling of his hands that could have arisen from his excitement at finally finishing the project, he put his engraving tool to the smooth volcanic glass to inscribe the final rune. It was Elder Futhark rune Eihwaz, the Yew Tree, the bridge between the past and the present. As Harry began the minute inscription of the lower cross-stroke, he thought back to his final duel with Voldemort. It was ironic, that the bearer of a yew wand would be triumphed over by the bearer of a holly wand. Eihwaz was a weak rune, only being used in specific circumstances. Eihwaz, a symbol of the bridge between the past and the present was always trumped by Sowilō, the rune of the sun, a symbol of the bridge between the present and the future, a rune which had the lesser signification of the holly tree, the same rune which Voldemort had inscribed into Harry's forehead as a child when he tried to kill him.

Harry had nearly completed the upper cross-stroke of the rune when a loud shout shattered the silent calm of his workroom.

"DAD! DR. STRANGE IS HERE TO SEE YOU!"

The artificer's hand jerked violently.

Harry quickly threw down his engraving tool and batted away the magnification lens to see how much damage he had done to his project. Any hope he had at the work being salvageable went out the window as he saw that his jerking hand had caused the Elder Futhark Eihwaz he was attempting to carve to be changed into the obscure Anglo Saxon rune variation Cweorð, a symbol of fire. His eyes widened as an orange glow began to pulse under the surface of the obsidian pyramid.

With a frantic flick of Harry's fingers, an opalescent shield sprang up around the shelves lining the room. After a disastrous incident a year and a half ago, he learned that it was best to shield the regents and reagents stored around the room before shielding himself so as to avoid any unforeseen reactions the errant magical source could have with the materials. His attempt at a modified permanent portkey had exploded, breaking apart a jar of time sand on the shelf above it. Harry had stupidly tried to shield catch the sand before it hit the portkey, but unfortunately he had reached the sand at the same time when the sand hit the smoldering wreckage. He had been whisked away through time and space and it had taken him a _very_ long time to get back. His arrival back in the present was one of the only times he was thankful that his aging had been stopped the moment he had become the Master of the Deathly Hallows. Had he not been immortal, Harry would never have lived to see his son again.

Harry did not have time to shield himself as the pensieve viewer decided to explode immediately after he had gotten his first shield in place. The fiery blast ripped through the workroom, knocking the artificer off of his feet and slamming him into the reinforced wall behind him. Despite the four foot thick metal and concrete wall, Harry's impact still caused the wall to buckle, creating a foot deep wizard-shaped crater. He could feel that most of his bones had been broken, the pain barely registering in the back of his mind, and he could feel blood and most likely liquefied brain matter running from his ears and nose.

Harry gave his body a minute to heal itself before extricating himself from the crater. This was the only other situation in which he was thankful for his mastery over the Deathly Hallows. If his body couldn't have regenerated, he would have long made Ted an orphan thrice over. After the death of both his parents and his grandmother, Andromeda, Harry was glad that his son would not have to go through the ordeal of burying another parent or guardian. Right now, however, Harry's mind wasn't on his immortality, it was focused on severely grounding his teenage son.

Not caring that his body had not fully regenerated or that half of his supposedly fireproof dragon skin over-robe, as well as most of his clothes, had been burned away, the wizard stormed out of his workshop in search of his loudmouthed son.

Harry found the fifteen year old lounging in the overstuffed sofa in the penthouse's living room. The artificer absently noticed that Ted was speaking to two guests. Harry immediately recognized one as the first friend he had made after moving to New York, Dr. Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. The second guest he did not recognize. The African-American man was of average height. His black eye patch and serious features spoke to a straight forward, no nonsense disposition. Despite being obscured slightly by a long leather duster, the way the man held himself screamed soldier. He had seen that same poise in many of the veterans of the Blood Wars. If the man was accompanying Stephen Strange to see him, Harry was sure that the man was already aware of magic. With a flick of his wrist, Harry summoned the Elder Wand to his hand out of thin air and shot a stinging hex at his son.

Ted yelped and fell off of the couch flailing. The teen quickly popped back up, wand out, his hair a vibrant yellow in his surprise. Upon seeing his father, wand out, glaring at him angrily, the boy paled. Unconsciously, Ted's hair slipped out of its surprised state and faded to match the lack of color in his skin.

"Uh," the boy started, "S-so, Dad… You've got some guests?" Ted's attempt at normal conversation faded into a question as his fear of his impending grounding overcame his too-cool-to-care teenage persona.

"Theodore Remus Lupin-Black," Ted flinched. His full name was never a good sign and the calm cool tone of Harry's voice only emphasized how much trouble he was in, "You will go to your room and sit at your desk until I am finished here," the thought of reading until Harry was done quickly popped into his head, but Ted dismissed it just as fast. His dad would know. Dad _always_ knew, "and we will have a discussion about being quiet when I am working," Ted could only nod as he slowly made his way out of the room, trying to delay the inevitable.

As soon as Ted was out of sight, Harry's shoulders sagged, the fatigue that accompanied his bodily regeneration finally making itself known. He turned to his guests, an apologetic smile gracing his face.

"I'm sorry about that, Ted knows better than to yell and shout when I'm working and his outburst just cost me four months of work."

"Don't worry, Harry," Stephen said with an understanding smile, "If I had lost four months of work, I would have done more than sting him on his rear and send him to his room," Stephen fell silent as his previous comment seemed to remind him of something as a ponderous look crept into his eyes and his brow furrowed in concentration.

Harry cleared his throat, used to the eccentricities that accompanied his friend's status as the Sorcerer Supreme. The man snapped out of whatever train of thought had taken him and looked up at Harry, a question in his eye. Harry nodded towards the still un-introduced man sitting next to the sorcerer.

"Oh, I am sorry," Stephen said as he realized he had forgotten about the man he had brought to meet the artificer, "Harry, this is Colonel Nickolas Fury, Director of the Strategic Hazard Intelligence, Espionage, and Logistics Directorate, the international martial peacekeeping branch of the United Nations. Colonel Fury, this is Lord Hadrian Potter-Black, twelfth Baron of Ancient's Grange and the worlds foremost authority on Norse and Asguardian Magics," Harry nodded in greeting to the man and received a slight dip of the head in response.

"So, Colonel, what can I help you with?"

"Lord Potter-Black, I have been inf…" Fury was cut off.

"Harry," the artificer offered, "My name is Harry."

"As I was saying, _Lord Potter-Black_, I have been informed by Dr. Strange that you are more qualified than he to aid us in our current situation," Fury removed a thick file folder from his duster and dropped it on the coffee table in front of him. With a flick of his wand, Harry summoned the folder and opened it to a contract full of legal jargon and tedium basically stating that, should he reveal any information disclosed to him in the folder to anyone without the security clearance, he would be executed as a traitor without a trial as dictated by SHIELD's rules of wartime.

Harry rolled his eyes at the form but signed it anyway, sending it back at Fry with a flick of his wand. It wasn't as if it was possible for him to be killed, so a puny gunshot to the back of the head was nothing to worry about.

"The Colonel originally came to me seeking assistance, but I quickly realized that this concerned wizardry and not sorcery, so I was a little out of my depth," Stephen explained, "It definitely appeared to be Asguardian in origin and I remember seeing something similar in your lab a couple of years ago, so I thought you may know something about it."

Harry leafed through the packet of papers until he was met with a picture of a _very_ familiar object.

"Well, I would hope I knew something about the Tesseract, I did make the blasted thing!"

* * *

**A/N: I AM ALIVE! I will be starting to write again and will be reevaluating my previous stories. I don't know how long it will be between updates because I have developed a tremor in my hands that could be anything from Beneign Tremor to Young Onset Parkinson's Disease or a Brain Tumor. My doctor is just starting to assess it.**


	2. Just to Make Things Clear

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own anything belonging to Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, or Disney. I am not making money from this fanfiction.

**The Artificer**

**Chapter 2: Just to Make Things Clear**

_"The Colonel originally came to me seeking assistance, but I quickly realized that this concerned wizardry and not sorcery, so I was a little out of my depth," Stephen explained, "It definitely appeared to be Asguardian in origin and I remember seeing something similar in your lab a couple of years ago, so I thought you may know something about it."_

_Harry leafed through the packet of papers until he was met with a picture of a __very __familiar object._

_"Well, I would hope I knew something about the Tesseract, I did make the blasted thing!"_

* * *

The only evidence of Colonel Fury's disbelief was the raising of his single eyebrow.

"I believe you have the Tesseract confused with something else, Lord Potter-Black," Fury explained, speaking down to Harry as if he were explaining something complicated to a five year old, "Apart from having been in SHIELD custody since the end of the Second World War, our scientists have estimated the age of the cube at approximately twenty-four thousand years." As Colonel Fury was sitting with his blind eye towards Dr. Strange, the man did not see the Sorcerer Supreme just shake his head, knowing what was coming.

"You don't believe me?" Harry asked coolly. He despised lies, finding throughout his long life that they only built upon themselves and eventually toppled down around the person who told them. Anyone who knew the artificer knew that he held honor in the fact that he did not lie.

"It is not that I don't believe you, Lord Potter-Black," Fury tried to give a diplomatic answer, knowing that if the Sorcerer Supreme said that a man who barely looked old enough to shave was an expert in a field, they were an expert in a field… a field in which Fury desperately needed information, "I am only stating that, while you may have created a similar artifact, if you had taken the time to read the file, you would know that it would have been impossible for you to have created the Tesseract."

Harry stared at Fury for a moment, thinking through the possible ways of convincing the man that he was speaking the truth. Finally deciding that Fury was the kind of man who did not believe someone without irrefutable proof (and even then being wary of a deception), Harry stood up. He brushed the ash that had once been part of his work robe off of where he had been sitting on the couch and waved his wand over his clothes, repairing and restoring them to their original, pre-explosion state. The artificer noticed Fury's hands twitch in the direction of his armpits when he had raised his wand, undoubtedly yearning for the comfortable weight of the two pistols that Harry caught a glimpse of as Fury had removed the Tesseract file from his duster.

"Colonel Fury, I think the only way you will believe me is if I show you," Fury looked slightly intrigued, but Harry didn't care. He glanced over to his sorcerer friend, "I'm taking him down to the vault. Do you want to come, Stephen?"

"No," the man said shaking his head, "I've been down enough times. Besides," he glanced over to one of the bookcases framing the fireplace, "I see that you finally got hold of Flamel's treatise on alchemical transmorgrification," the sorcerer pointed at a large leather bound tome sitting in a glass display case inlaid into the center of one of the bookcases, "Could I possible take a peek?" Harry could see that his friend was truly excited to get his hands on the last copy in existence on the definitive work on alchemy. He teased the man by seeming to think it over and chuckled when the normally stoic Stephen Strange resorted to wide-eyed pleading and a small hopeful smile to try to gain access to the book.

"Oh, alright!" Harry flicked his fingers at the display case and the heavily warded glass surrounding the five hundred year old handwritten tome melted into nothing. While he was wary of letting another person touch the book, let alone read it, Harry knew that the priceless book was in good hands with Stephen, "But please steer clear of the directions for creating a Philosopher's Stone. I know that you wouldn't be able to make one, as one needs to be a wizard to create it, but I would rather not have the knowledge floating around out there, even if it is only in your head," Stephen nodded, understanding that even one's thoughts were not safe in certain situations.

"Colonel, if you would follow me, please?" Harry turned his back on the SHIELD Director and started to walk towards the room's open doorway. He did not look back to see if Fury was following him. It would have made him appear weak to bow to the whim of a man who was a guest of his house. That was one of the first lessons he had learned after he had come too in unfamiliar territory after his accident with the portkey and time sand. Sure enough, Harry heard Fury's quick but sure footsteps as he caught up with the artificer.

"I am not here for show and tell, Lord Potter-Black," Fury grumbled as Harry led him through the penthouse, "If you had read the file first, like you were supposed to, you would know that I need the information I came for as quickly as possible. Lives have already been lost over this incident and I can guarantee that more lives will be lost if we waste time." Harry stopped as they reached a stretch of hallway wall adorned with framed moving photographs of friends and family, both living and deceased.

"And I can guarantee _you_, Colonel Fury," Harry's voice grew icy. The wizard's words seemed to pierce Fury's hardened exterior and the Director could not help the small shiver of fear that ran down his spine due to the unequivocated _power_ held within the wizard's words, "that we are not wasting time. In the small time I have known you, I have found that you are a man who will not believe something that goes against your immediate perception without evidence to back the claim," Harry turned away from the man and faced the wall adorned with photographs, "I am giving you your proof that I speak the truth and Dr. Strange was valid in his assertion that I was this world's foremost expert in Asguardian and Norse magics," When Fury did not respond Harry cleared his throat, took a calming breath, and waved his hand across the wall.

"Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri!" Harry spoke the name in a whisper, but it resonated so heavily with magic that Fury, a man who did not have a drop of magic within him, felt it resonate within his very bones.

The wall rippled and faded from view, revealing the heavy metal door of an old freight elevator. Once Fury recovered from a supernatural force resonating in his skeleton, he noticed that the slim wizard had hefted the rusty door open with seemingly no effort and was waiting for him to step inside the machine. While this was not the most shocking thing Fury had experienced after nearly sixty years in an agency that dealt with the paranormal on a daily basis, what he had just experienced had definitely taken him out of his usual perception of 'normal'. He would never have expected powerful magic to hide a rusty old elevator of all things.

One could not be the Director of Shield and not take things like this in stride, so Fury stepped into the metal deathtrap and nodded to his host to close the doors.

* * *

"I have heard about SHIELD, you know," Harry's voice broke the silence after five minutes of traveling downward into the earth. The single bare light bulb above them revealed that they had long left the brick elevator shaft and were now barreling into the earth below New York City if the rocky walls outside of the freight elevator were any indication, "The agency does quite a bit of good around the world," At this statement, Fury turned to Harry. That was not how most described the agency, "You're goal is to protect the continuity of the human races, be it Homo Sapiens Sapiens, Homo Sapiens Superior, or Homo Sapiens Magus," Harry stated, giving Fury a knowing look. It had only been recently that SHIELD had begun to dally in the politics of the International Confederation Wizards as they tried to secure the rights of mundanes and mutants within the wizarding world. Fury wondered just how much Potter knew, "I have had experience with this type of world outlook and I have found that all too often it causes those with the best intentions to lose sight of the value of the individual."

"Lord Potter-Black," Fury responds, "I don't know how this applies to the current sit-"

"Don't patronize me, Fury," Harry cut him off, "I know that you have done your homework on me. You know my history with Voldemort. What your precious file on me may not have told you was the real reason I left Britain with Teddy. Publically, I left because I was bored and had nothing to do. In reality, I left because I was fed up with people just using me as a tool to get something they wanted. As much as I loved that old man, Albus Dumbledore used me as a tool to defeat Voldemort. Kingsley Shacklebolt used his association with me as a reelection platform so he could make needed changes to the government. Stores wanted to use me to endorse their products. They did not see me as a person, but rather for their own motives, even if the motives were altruistic like Albus and Kingsley.

"I am revealing this to you only to convince you that I can help you," Harry turned his attention away from the rock wall speeding past them and looked Fury in the eyes, "I will help you, but only because I swore to do everything I could to protect the Tesseract from falling into the wrong hands when I made the mistake of ever creating the thing. The things you are about to see will only leave this vault on the off chance that I decide when, where, and how to use them. There is truly nothing you can do to force me to use them against my will and I will destroy anyone and anything that tries," The icy chill had crept back into Harry's voice by the end of his impromptu speech and it took all of Fury's concentration not to swallow to calm his nerves.

"Is that a threat, Mr. Potter?" The Director asked, confirming that he knew _exactly_ who he was stuck in a small metal box with miles below the earth.

"No, Director," Harry sighed, "I am only explaining what the only possible outcome could be, should anyone try to breach the security measures I have in place. The items in this vault could cause either the salvation or the destruction of the human race, depending upon who gets their hands on them. If no one is able to access them apart from me, I know that I can limit the damage they can do to the world," Harry turned back to watch the rock fly past them.

After a few moments, a small sly smile graced his lips, "You believe in the old-fashioned notion that remarkable people can change the world. Do you think that I am remarkable enough for you to let me change the world by keeping what lies below us safe?" Fury could only stare in shock at the man beside him as he tried to comprehend how the wizard could know _that_ about him. In the end, he only came to the conclusion that: yes, Harry Potter might just be one of those few remarkable people he believes in.

The jarring halt of the service elevator broke the two men out of their thoughts and Harry couldn't help but smile when he thought of the possible reactions Fury could have to the sight and story his was about to experience. With ease, Harry hefted up the heavy door and gave Fury and unimpeded view of the room before him.

"Welcome," Harry said with dramatic wave of his hand, "to my Artifact Vault."

* * *

**A/N 1: Hey y'all, here's the next chapter. I am making a commitment to try my hardest to get a chapter posted every Monday. This is not to say that I might not post a chapter during the week if I finish one early. I just want to assure you that I am hopefully going to post at least one a week. One of the big problems I ran into with my previous fanfics was I tried to keep most of the chapters around 5k words. Doing that, there was usually a longer time during updates, and I lost my drive for writing. **

**A/N 2: Let me just say, "WOW!" For a small story with one chapter, less than 2,500 words, and has only been out for a week it has gotten a lot of attention. As it stands, I've got 56 reviews, 3922 hits, 11 C2s, 181 favorites, and 403 alerts. This is already in top 3 most responsive fics and this has only been up for a week, whereas the other two have been up for two and a half and two years respectively. I just want to say, "MY READERS ROCK!"**

**A/N 3: Thank you all for your reviews, especially for your corrections on my grammar and continuity. I don't have a beta reader (it would be great if one of you would like to volunteer) and I actually would like you to point out mistakes in reviews or PMs. There are a few reviewers I would like to thank personally and address questions they raised.**

**NotaFro, sidestory, MayaStormborn, Firehedgehog, neverfound29,¡Ficti0n!, Guest from Nov 25, Pumpkin cream pie, Godlikelover16, senshiHg, lordamnesia, silverscale, and Morbious20: Thank you for your concern and well wishes about my health. I went to the doctor last Tuesday. He had some blood work done and is sending it to a Neurologist with whom I am going to make an appointment with this week. He thinks it might be nervous because I have been having headaches that I didn't realize could be connected and he found that my right hand and arm is a good amount weaker than my left, even when I am not having the tremors. So, all I can do is take it one step at a time and just keep on going.**

**Mojtaba13: Yes, I was thinking of writing a spinoff of when Harry had the accident, but it will be within the confines of the HPxThor genre as where and when Harry was sent is very important to this story. If I do create a spinoff, it will be a series of one-shots about episodes in Harry's absence since if I wrote the whole story, it would be longer than this fic is planning to be.**

**Swallow-Tailed Kite: Thanks for the note on the dialogue tags, I'll fix it later today when I have the chance.**

**shiroyuuko: I didn't know that Teddy's name was actually Edward. Thanks for that fact. I am, however, going to change his name to Theodore. I don't know if it's an English thing, but I have never met a guy named Edward that was called Ted or Teddy. I do, however know a guy named Theodore (well, it's actually Theodoro, but he's Philippino, so it's really the same thing) that everyone calls Ted and Teddy, so I really am just going with what I know.**

**discb: Harry made the cube when he was thrown back in time and space with that accident with the portkey and time sand I mentioned. As to Teddy, I wanted Teddy to be raised as Harry's son, so I made Andromeda die when Teddy was 3 in a retaliatory Death Eater attack against Harry by killing his godson. Andromeda sacrificed herself to buy time for Harry to come and save Teddy from the Death Eaters. Hasn't come up yet in the story, but there's the explination.**

**Mad about the Boro: Thanks for the note about the spelling errors. Sometimes I miss them in my own writing, so could you please send me a PM with the ones you found so I don't overlook any? Thanks. As to your question about SHIELD, I made a mistake. It was meant to be Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, but I wrote that part of the chapter in a lull between classes and didn't think to check the name against the marvel wiki. I am going to change it when I have time later today.**

**A/N 3: I hope all those in the USA had a happy Thanksgiving! **

**Olorin the Maiar out!**


	3. The Vault

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own anything belonging to Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, or Disney. I am not making money from this fanfiction.

**The Artificer**

**Ch. 3: The Vault**

**A/N: Hey y'all, I felt bad leaving you short on words and on a cliffhanger so I wrote this. Just to warn you, there is a back story monologue by Harry towards the end. I normally don't like to do that, but it kind of had to happen. I hope you enjoy.**

Fury didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. _This_ was a massive stone cavern filled with anything one could imagine. From his the raised balcony that the elevator opened onto, he could make out that most of the items in the cavern had been sorted into wooden boxes, but many of the items were either too oddly-shaped, large, or seemingly impractical to box up. The Director could see a space against the far wall that looked like it had been deliberately set up as a workspace under an enormous metal contraption composed of innumerable clockwork gears held together by a sphere whirling metal rings. Light glinted off a large glass apparatus that appeared to be a large, complex chemistry distiller. Fury followed Harry closely as the wizard made his way down from the balcony and began to wind his way through the maze of crates.

As the Director was lead on a seemingly aimless route around the cavern, Fury slowly became convinced that it was quite possible that Harry James Potter-Black, arguably the most powerful wizard in world (according to his SHIELD file), was utterly insane. It had been impossible to discern the nature of the objects that had been scattered among the crates due to the some four hundred feet between balcony at which he entered the cavern and the floor below. Now, however, when he was able to take a closer look at the objects littering the piles of boxes, he found that they were nothing more than old junk. At first, Fury had thought that the junk was just an intricate ruse to fool would be robbers into thinking that there was nothing of value here, but now he was quite aware of the possibility that Potter was mad.

Potter led him through a field of tables set with broken china and mangled silverware. He even had the nerve to make Fury crawl under one of the rickety constructions and when the popped back up on the other side, the Baron just led him back around the table and they exited the area from the way they came. They had climbed a mountainous pile of broken furniture, wound their way through a forest of moldy dress manikins, and Fury could have sworn that they passed the same half deflated children's bouncy castle four times. They had passed the area which Fury had though was a work area but it was just more of the same. Tattered, half-completed coloring books and word searches littered the tables and what Fury had through was a chemistry distiller was actual a pile of cheap glass baubles similar to the ones drug addicts would buy at shady gas stations to break and smoke crack cocaine or crystal meth out of. The large metal structure which had impressed Fury when he first entered the cave was actually just a slowly rotating ball of rusted car parts that had been welded together to form some attempt at abstract art.

Finally, Potter stopped at a large pile of splintered doors. At this point, Fury had just decided that it was best if just play along with the wizard's mad journey. Someone who had lost all concept of reality was most dangerous when they were confronted with facts that contradict their actions. From what the Director had read in the wizard's SHIELD file and from the man's experiences with the wizard, Fury was not sure that he would come out alive with a straight up fight. Even if the African-American was able to dispatch Potter quickly and quietly with a bullet to the back of the skull, he was quite sure he wouldn't get out of here alive. He knew his multiple communicators were down as he had checked them periodically during their useless trek around the cavern.

Even if he was able to get a message to the agency, Fury was quite sure that Potter and he were not alone in this cavern. Every once in a while, out of the corner of his eye, the Colonel had caught a flash of shining emerald green scales. As quickly as it appeared, it vanished behind a corner in the maze. Once (just once, mind you, but once was enough) Fury spotted an enormous snake skin rolled up and stuffed in the gap between two crates. The serpent which had shed it must have been at least one hundred and twenty feet long. Upon first seeing the skin, he thought (hoped, really) it might have been a trophy from the famous Slytherin Basilisk Potter had slain when he was twelve, but that optimistic thought vanished when he remembered that the snake Potter had killed had been reliably verified at fifty-three feet.

If there was one thing Fury hated more than child molesters and going into a hostile situation completely blind, it was snakes. The man _loathed_ snakes.

"Well," Harry said cheerfully, gesturing at a seemingly innocuous door lying on the decrepit pile with its fellows, "we are finally here!"

"Ah, I can see that, Mr. Potter," Fury said, playing along with the wizard's madness, "very impressive. Why don't we just go back up to your sitting room and we can discuss my situation. I need to go over the file with you so you can give me your opinion on what course of action we must now take," Fury flinched internally at his seemingly obvious ploy to get out of this damned cavern. He had not been thinking clearly since he had spotted the snakeskin and he hoped that the blunder didn't cause the wizard to become hostile.

Harry stared at Fury with disbelief for a moment, his jaw hanging slack. Finally, the wizard seemed to fully process what the Director had said, and burst out laughing. Fury quietly watched the Lord bend over, holding his side as he let out his mirth. Truthfully, the eye-patch wearing man didn't know what to make of his host's actions: with the insane, laughter is not always a good sign.

"You actually thought," Harry said, straightening upright and wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, "that this junk was what I was talking about?" He let out a few more chuckles, "Director Fury, none of this actually exists!"

"Of course it doesn't, Lord Potter-Black, it was my mistake," Fury supplied, still thinking that Harry had gone round the bend.

"You still don't believe me?"

"…"

"Director Fury," Harry sighed, "This is one of the protection measures I put in place to deter anyone but myself from being able to lead someone to the Inner Vault. We have been wandering around an empty cave for the past hour and a half," the artificer explained, "What we have been experiencing is a full-sensory illusion. Each time anyone, including myself, enters this cavern, the Outer Vault, they are presented with a different maze filled with different things. There is a guard which is not effected by the illusion that follows us as we make our way through the maze. Since I am the one who created the illusion, the illusion guides my magic through the correct path that leads to the door to the Inner Vault. Should someone attempt to make their way through the maze without me present, even if they follow the correct path, the guard has orders kill and eat the intruder. If someone does accompany me and does not follow the path I lead them on, the wards in this room will painfully kill them. Should they get past the wards and strays from the path, again, the guard has the standing order to eat them." Harry ended with a smirk at how wide Fury's good eye had gotten during his explanation.

"So, was the large serpent I saw out of the corner of my eye the guard or another of your illusions to make intruders see their greatest fear waiting for them, should they stray from the path?" Fury asked, hoping that the snake was just a figment of his imagination. Sadly, it was not to be.

"You actually saw part of Jormungand?" Harry asked, surprised, "You must have an extremely strong mind to see through part of the illusion. Yes, he is real. I can call him into the illusion if you want to meet him," Harry offered sincerely, as if meeting a one hundred and twenty foot (and sentient if Fury's theory of the species of the serpent being a basilisk was correct) was something at the top of anyone's to do list.

"NO!" Fury answered a little too quickly and forcefully. Taking a breath, he cleared his throat and continued, "No, we need to proceed. Time is of the essence and I need to learn anything that could possibly help me recover the Tesseract."

Harry's friendly demeanor was gone in an instant as his mind latched on to Fury's last statement. Gone was the carefree attitude Potter had shown while in the maze and was replaced by the powerful wizard who sent shivers of fear down the Director's spine in the penthouse hallway somewhere above them.

"Are you trying to say, Director, that the Tesseract just disappeared or that the Tesseract, the most powerful energy source in the _universe_ has been stolen?"

The chill was no longer restricted to Harry's voice as the temperature of the cavern air around him dropped perceptibly.

"Show me what you have brought me down here to see," Fury said, his voice wavering as his teeth started to chatter, "and then I will tell you what you want to know. But right now, I cannot express how imperative that it is to move quickly."

Harry nodded and the cavern air returned to its normal temperature. He reigned in his magical aura and noticed that Fury perceptibly relaxed. He did not, however abandon his cool and collected attitude.

With a flick of his wrist, the wizard levitated the door he had indicated earlier off of the pile and onto the dirty floor. Bending, he grabbed hold of the handle, turned it, and pulled the door open as if it were affixed to a door jam. Instead of revealing the stone floor, as it would have had (if it was a normal door), it revealed a rectangular patch of impenetrable darkness.

"Follow me," Harry looked over his shoulder for a moment before reaffixing his gaze upon the black rectangle in front of him so that Fury could not see his cold smirk, "You might not want to dally too long after me. I have not yet fed Jormungand this month and he has been hissing that he could use a snack for the past half hour," With that, Harry hopped into the rectangle and disappeared into the darkness.

Fury stood stock still for a few moments, trying to process that he had just seen a wizard disappear into a solid rock floor.

The man was startled out of his stupor by a loud hissing noise behind him. He spun around and caught sight of an immense snake, its eyes closed flicking its tongue out to smell the air around him. While he had never seen a picture on one, he immediately recognized the serpent as a basilisk. Just like the description he had read of the basilisk killed by Potter when he was twelve, this serpent was emerald green with horned ridges around its nose, eyes and the flat of its head. The only difference between this monster and the one Potter fought was that this beast had a shock of crimson feathers of a size that suited the large basilisk. Startled by the snake whose nostrils alone were the size of manhole covers, Fury took a step back, his foot landing on the black rectangle in the floor. Suddenly, the man felt as if he were being sucked forcefully into the void.

Jormungand flicked his massive tongue out, trying to find where the new human had gone. Letting out a disappointed hiss, the massive basilisk slithered back to his nest in a hidden tunnel branching off of the cavern. Master Haraldr never let him try any of the sweet-smelling snacks he brought with him.

'Oh well,' the massive serpent thought, 'I guess there is always hope for next time.'

* * *

Fury landed in a heap on the cold stone floor of what he assumed was the Inner Vault. Immediately springing up to assess his surroundings, the director's good eye went wide with surprise. This Inner Vault and the Outer Vault could not be any more different. This room, while still fully stone, was created out of quarried and polished blocks of blue stone that looked eerily similar to lapis lazuli. Bright orbs of light floated just under the vaulted ceiling, shedding everything below in a warm yellow glow.

On the floor in rows before him, Fury saw the clean lines of glass display cases similar to the one he had opened for Dr. Strange in the penthouse sitting room. He didn't doubt that each glass case was magical and as, if not more, heavily warded than the Outer Vault itself. Fury wandered down the main aisle to where he spotted Harry pulling scrolls and books from cubbyholes carved into the back wall. As he looked around, each case held something unique and had a small brass plaque floating in the air in font it detailing what the case contained. As he noticed the wizard was rather engrossed in his searching of scrolls and books, the director took the chance to examine a few of the cases and plaques.

A heavy red and silver helmet with thick ram's horns spiraling from the crown to approximately shoulder height was explained as:

**Helmet of Bor Burisonr**

**Forged by Dvergr in Nidavellir**

**Enchantments by ****Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri**

A few cases down, three immense swords floated, tips pointed towards the ground, slowly rotating in place. The plaque described them as:

**Sword of Cul Borsonr (Left)**

**Craftsman Unknown: No Enchantments**

**Captured in Mortal Combat by Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri**

**Sword of Vili Borsonr (Center)**

**Craftsman Unknown: No Enchantments**

**Captured in Mortal Combat by Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri**

**Sword of Ve Borsonr (Right)**

**Craftsman Unknown: No Enchantments**

**Captured in Mortal Combat by Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri**

Fury skipped the rest of the display cases on the aisle, as it appeared Harry was nearly finished sorting through the pile of books and scrolls he had accumulated. As he neared the area where the wizard was so diligently working, he couldn't help but be drawn to a glass case that had been set aside in a place of honor at the end of the hall.

Two items were magically suspended within the case, a staff and a full set of armor, both works of art. The armor seemed to be made out of some creature's hide, the emerald scales clearly discernable against the black skin that held them together. He could tell that the suit had been made for someone of slight stature as the silver metal spaulers and cuisses which had been effortlessly attached to the hide denoted a quick warrior with whipcord musculature. A silver rondel held a heavy black cloak in place at the left shoulder above which an engraved silver helmet floated. Fury wondered if it was Asguardian fashion or personal preference that caused both Asguardian helmets that he had seen in this vault have horns. While the helmet of Bor Burisonr had thick ram horns that told of brute strength and fortitude, the helmet before him spoke of a dangerous grace and elegance. Seemingly delicate stag horns sprouted from the approximate area where the wearer's ears would be and swept backwards, the wickedly sharp tips of the sixteen point rack only rising three or four inches above the crown of the helmet. The accompanying weapon seemed to follow the stag horn theme, as the entire length of the silver staff had been carved to resemble the texture of staghorn and the top of the staff flared off into a replica of one of the helmet's antlers, the razor sharp tips bending to one side. Only seven words were inscribed on the small plaque floating in front of the case:

**Apparel of Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri**

"They are quite a set, aren't they?" Harry said, seemingly appearing next to Fury out of nowhere.

Fury flinched at the sudden appearance, but kept his now ponderous gaze pointed towards the case.

"About eighteen months ago, I had a rather serious accident," Harry explained. Now that Fury had seen part of his collection, the director's preconceived expectations of the wizard had been wiped away and he was finally ready to accept how Harry could have come to create the Tesseract, "I was attempting to modify a wizarding transport device when it exploded."

"That," Fury said as he fought to control the slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, "seems like a regular occurrence around here." Harry's mind went back to the wreckage of his penseive viewer and chuckled.

"Yes," Harry admitted, "It does seem to happen quite often. It's actually why there are so few artificers in the world… but I digress," he cleared his throat, "I had not shielded some of the ingredients in my lab properly and a vial of a substance that slightly disrupts the flow of time shattered and spilt over the wreckage of my experiment. The imbecile that I was, I tried to catch the sand before it hit the destroyed transporter. Unfortunately, my hand came in contact with the sand at the same time that it hit the wreckage and I was whisked away through time and space.

"I landed on Asguard approximately twenty-five thousand years ago. My luck being as it was, I landed myself in the center of a battle, a battle in which the Asguardians were losing badly. The attacking Dark Elves thought I was an Asguardian and attacked me," Harry gave a cold laugh, his gaze still fixed on the armor and staff of Dróttinn Ellri, "They found out the hard way that I was one of the few true immortals in this universe." At this revelation, Fury's gaze snapped away from the case and was focused intently on Harry. The wizard's SHIELD file had cited several events within the past decade where the agency had no probable explanation why the artificer was still alive. Fury was embarrassed to say that the agency had not taken into account the possibility of true immortality. While hard to believe, it was the only explanation that fit the facts and had an immensely larger probability than any of the half-assed theories that his Research and Development Department had come up with.

"Buri was the Allfather back then and he was quite a bit more generous than I hear his grandson is today. He made me a citizen of Asguard and one of his advisors as he were rather impressed by my magical skill. In those days, magic was a near foreign concept to the Asguardians and Buri put it upon me to promote magical disciplines among his people after seeing me fight with both wand as sword.

"The entire time I was in Asguard, I tried to find a way to get back to Teddy and my life here. After about five hundred years of scouring the Nine Realms for possible ways of traveling forward in time. Going back is easy. The past has already happened so what you would experience would always be concrete. Going forward, one needs a lot more preparation and energy. I found that the only way for me to get enough power into my inventions and spells was to harness the background magic of the universe. It took five hundred years straight of work, only stopping to take care of my body, but I was finally able to find a way to convert magic into a temporally bound electromagnetic wavelength that I could use to power my spells. I built the Tesseract and readied my spells only to realize I did not know _when_ I was in reference to my current time.

"I spent the next fourteen thousand years living half my time in Asguard and while the other half was spent Midguard trying to identify an event which I knew the approximate date of so that I could set my calculations into motion. It was during my time on Asguard that I realized how dangerous it was for the Tesseract to fall into the wrong hands.

"I had lent the cube to Buri to help the Asguardians power their magical, scientific, and industrial revolution that had come about from the magic I had taught them. Buri had married a Frost Giantess of their Royal Family against her parent's wishes. The Frost Giants invaded Asguard to capture the Queen and bring her back to Jotenheim. The Frost Giants were able to take the castle and capture the Buri and the Queen, but the castle was quickly surrounded by the Asguardian armies. They besieged the castle for years, years in which the Frost Giants found the Tesseract and used it to create their own weapon, the Casket of Ancient Winters. In the end, the giants killed Buri and the Queen and escaped back to Jotenheim with the Casket. It was then that I swore to protect the Tesseract from being used for destruction.

"So, when I finally recognized the founding of Jericho about eleven thousand years before my real time, I adjusted my temporal calculations and put my possessions," Harry gestured around at the contents of the Inner Vault, "into storage on Midguard so I could retrieve them when I return. Odin had recently been crowned Allfather, so I made him promise that he would hide the Tesseract away on Earth until I could retrieve it and bring it back to Asguard should they ever be in need of it again."

Harry finally turned and looked at Fury, who was surveying the wizard with a critical eye, "That is why I know so much about SHIELD. I traced the Tesseract to you after World War Two and have been watching your movements with it ever since, should you ever make any _more_ aggressive plans using the Tesseract."

Fury's eye narrowed in suspicion at Harry's choice of words.

"Yes," the wizard said, nodding in affirmation of Fury's assumption, "I know about 'Phase 2' in all its destructive glory."

"If you truly do, then you know I was against it from the start."

Harry nodded.

"And that is why you were still in possession of the Tesseract until recently."

Minutes passed as the two quietly stood looking up at the armor and staff hovering in case. Fury finally broke the silence, speaking from one soldier to another.

"At zero two hundred hours this morning, a portal was opened from the other side of the universe using the Tesseract at a classified facility, Codename PEGASUS. One Asguardian Prince named Loki appeared and proceeded to use a possibly magical device to control the minds of one of our best operatives and a top scientist. I was present at the site at the time of the incident and attempted to put a halt to it. I was shot by the agent under mind control and the Asguardian stole the Tesseract. We are currently attempting to gather a team to track and retrieve the Cube, apprehend the Asguardian Loki, and disassociate those under mind control from their controller if possible…. Can we count on you?"

Harry glanced over at Fury, "I'm going. Where and when?"

The director handed the wizard a package from a second large pocket in his duster, "Be at McGuire Air Force Base at zero seven hundred tomorrow to present credentials. Wheels up at zero seven twenty."

Harry traded the director the packet of information for a disposable pen he had pulled from one of his robe pockets.

"This will take you up to the building's lobby when you say the password. I am going to go over my notes for the Tesseract." Harry turned away from Fury and went back to his pile of scrolls and books.

"What's the password?" Fury asked after he had finished examining the pen.

Harry didn't even turn to answer him. He just gestured at glass case they had been standing in front of for the past half hour and said, "The password is Haraldr Œvisonr inn Dróttinn Ellri's real name."

Fury stared at the plaque with the name written on it for a few moments before inspiration hit him and he rolled his eye at the simplicity of it. With the murmuring of the words, "Harry James Potter," Director Fury was whisked away from the underground Vault with a jerk behind his navel and a whirl of color and sound.


	4. Flying

A/N: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe. I do not make any money from this.

The Artificer

Ch. 4: Flying

Harry Potter loved flying. This fact was uncontested by any and all who knew the wizard. By broom, stunt plane, flying carpet, or under his own magical prowess; Harry didn't care, as long as he sped through the air and was in control. While the wizard had decided against true flight as a valid means of transport to deliver himself to the New Jersey Air Force Base the next morning due to its simple impracticality, the man had chosen the next best thing in his book.

The artificer sped through the state's seldom used back roads on his godfather's old motorcycle at speeds that rivaled his old Firebolt. After retrieving the old 1939 Brough Superior SS1000 from Hagrid's back shed, where it had been collecting dust since its use in the Battle of the Seven Potters, Harry had stripped away the clunky sidecar that Sirius had added so that both Remus and his father could ride with him (the traitor Pettigrew refused to voluntarily travel on anything that went faster than a slow plod; even the Hogwarts Express had made him nervous) and restored the classic motorbike to its former glory (and beyond using his skills with runes). Now pushing the bikes possible speed at approximately two hundred miles per hour, the wizard zipped in and out of traffic, the only thing keeping him from becoming a bloody smear on the pavement being his quidditch and battle honed reflexes.

Harry was grinning madly as he approached the heavily guarded front gate of the facility. With a flick of his fingers, the man raised the notice-me-not charm inscribed under the bike's jet black coat of paint to hide his planned stunt from view. The gate nearly upon him, he pulled up sharply on the handlebars and flung his center of gravity back so that his rear suspension catapulted the bike off of the ground and over the gate's concrete and steel barricade.

Dropping the notice-me-not charm quickly so the many units running PT along the roads of the base could admire the sleek lines of his baby, the wizard let the bike coast to a stop in one of the parking spaces reserved for visitors in front of the US Air Force Expeditionary Center Command. With a throaty grumble, the bike's engine shut off and Harry swung his leg off of the powerful machine. He removed his helmet, arching his back to work out any kinks he had accumulated on his adrenaline fueled ride form New York, surrepticiously stowing the safety device in a magically enlarged pocket inside the wizard's leather riding jacket. Removing the faded leather messenger bag that contained anything he thought he would possibly need to help recover the Tesseract shrunken down and nestled within its magical depths (his encoded notes, magical and Asgardian analytical instruments, his battle gear, a couple changes of clothes, and a toothbrush), the wizard, always a sucker for classic motorcycles, noticed that his baby wasn't the only gem in the parking lot. He took a few moments to admire the craftsmanship and painstaking attention to detail that the obvious bike enthusiast had used to restore his World War Two issue service bike to its current pristine state.

With a nod at the beauty, Harry made his way into the building, stopping at the front desk. The airman manning it was young, most likely fresh out of high school and basic training, and was furiously typing away at a keyboard, eyes glued to his computer screen. Harry opened his mouth to try to get the teen's attention, but was stopped abruptly when the young man raised a finger, giving the universal sign language of, 'I'll be with you in a minute; I'm almost done and I can't have any distractions!', adjusting his other hand so his fingers could compensate for the loss of their partners. Harry put on a patient smile, not caring that he had to wait as he had arrived twenty minutes before his scheduled arrival time. Finally, the man relaxed and pounded the enter key with a little more frustration than was usually warranted at a machine. Sitting back in his cheap office chair, the airman rubbed his face in what appeared to be mental exhaustion and looked up at Harry. Before the wizard got the chance to open his mouth, the young man in front of him shook his head exasperatedly.

"No, no, no. We've told you people a thousand times, couriers have to deliver to the mail office on post and we distribute it ourselves!"

Harry was thrown off for a moment by the comment and looked down at himself to find the source of the confusion. He did rather look like a courier with his well-worn blue jeans, t-shirt, old leather motorcycle jacket, and faded messenger bag.

"I guess I do look like one. But no, I'm not a courier. I'm actually-" Harry tried to explain but the receptionist cut him off.

"Then I guess you're trying to find your tour group," the airman's attention jumped back to his computer screen as he searched for something, "I wasn't aware that they had scheduled a civilian tour for this morning, but they never remember to tell me these things," the man's voice took on a mocking tone, "_I'm just a glorified secretary!_" Harry began to lose his patience with the seemingly petty man.

"I'm not a tourist. I was given orders to report today," Harry said coolly, "I know I am a little early, but that's no reason to be rude."

The airman looked skeptical due to Harry's appearance as a short seventeen year old, but checked his records anyway. His attitude faded from skeptical to annoyed when he found that the only appointment in the Command Center with any civilians in attendance was at seven, but the only one who had not arrived yet was some stuck up British Lord, not this punk teen wasting his time.

"Look, kid, I don't know how you got past the gate, but we both know that that's a load of bull! I'm gonna to have to ask you to leave before I'm forced to call the MPs. I don't-"

"THAT'S ENOUGH, AIRMAN RYAN!" a voice bellowed from the hallway that led into the compound. Both Harry and the rude receptionist turned to find severe looking uniformed man in his mid to late thirties glaring daggers at the airman. Immediately, Airman Ryan paled and sprang to attention.

"Staff Captain Silvio, sir, I was just telling this kid-"

"I said enough, Ryan," the Captain said, walking over to the two, "That's an order!" Silvio turned to Harry, the man's anger at the airman disappearing, "The United States Air Force apologizes for that, Lord Potter-Black. We've been expecting you," the man gestured down the hallway from which he came, "If you would follow me, I'll lead you to where you can wait for your briefing." The man led Harry into the building, waving him through security checkpoints without having to stop. After a few minutes, Silvio waved him into a small conference room, "You can wait in here, sir. Your supervising SHIELD agent will be here shortly." Harry nodded his thanks and entered the standard conference room, absent mindedly registering that he heard an extra click as the door locked when it swung shut behind him.

The room was sparse, the only furniture apart from the large plastic fern in the corner being a small conference table, a few of the same cheap desk chairs that Airman Ryan the Receptionist was sitting in, and a medium sized white board screwed to the wall at the head of the table. A basket of prepackaged muffins and an urn of burnt smelling coffee sat at one end of the table with a few Styrofoam cups and some flimsy napkins that looked like they would just move liquid around rather than absorb it, should there be a spill. He shook his head at the preservative loaded muffins that were more glutinous balls of dough than pastry and sat himself down at the other end of the table, opposite the only other occupant in the room.

Harry could instantly tell that the blond man seated in front of him was a soldier. The man did not have the presence of a hardened commander that Fury conducted himself with, but rather held himself with the strict discipline and situational awareness of a seasoned infantryman. The soldier was focused intently on his own SHIELD file open in front of him. Harry could tell that it contained quite a bit less information than his own did and from the few documents he saw, most of the file was concerned with combat information on Loki and the details concerning the Asgardian's act of Theft. There were no reports on output readings of the Tresseract, nor was there anything on the history of SHIELD's experiments with the cube. Harry concluded that this man was here for the retrieval and apprehension parts of the mission they were both soon to be a part of.

The pneumatic cylinder of the chair squeaked, grabbing the blond's attention, as the thing adjusted to Harry's weight.

"I guess that you would be the outside consultant Director Fury said would he would be bring in," the man said, giving a polite smile. At Harry's nod, the blond extended his hand, "Steve Rogers," he introduced himself. Harry shook the offered hand, a similar smile coming to his lips. So this was the famous Captain America?

"Harry Potter," he offered, pulling out his own file on the Tesseract.

"So, Mr. Potter," Rodgers started, "What do you specialize in exactly?"

"Well," Harry said, ready to give the answer he had prepared to use until he found out just how much of his past Fury was going to reveal to his collected task force, "generally, I study ancient Norse and Asgardian magic and technology, but one of the main aspects I focus on is the arithmancy behind the function of the Tesseract."

"Arithmancy?" The soldier raised an eyebrow at the foreign word.

"Think of it as the science and math behind magic," Harry supplied.

Rodgers frowned at the second mention of the word 'magic', but quickly shrugged it off, remembering a meeting he had spied on between a self-professed 'wizard' named Gellert Grindelwald and Johann Shmidt while he had been scouting out a HYDRA base during World War Two.

Any following questions were foregone, as the room's door opened and admitted a man who Harry assumed was their supervising SHIELD agent. While the man's suit screamed 'federal agent' surplus, the pleasant smile the man was wearing went against his expectations of another intense persona akin to Director Fury. The agent made his way over to where the two men were sitting and both stood to greet him.

"Mr. Rodgers, Lord Potter-Black, it's an honor to meet you both," Harry spotted an excited glimmer in the man's eye that was equally present as he addressed both men individually, "I'm Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD and I'll be your supervising agent for the foreseeable future," The wizard couldn't help but wonder if the man only knew of his past from a SHIELD file or if he had firsthand experience of the wizarding world.

"Nice to meet you," both said, Harry a half second behind Rodgers. There was a pause and Harry couldn't help but ask the question nagging at him.

"Salem Institute, Hopi Enclave, or Napa College?" he queried, covertly asking if the man had attended any of the United States' wizarding academies.

"None of the above," Agent Coulson said, shaking his head, "I was the unlucky one in my family who didn't get the gene. My parents emigrated from England during the First Blood War, but I had been kept abreast of the events of the second war by my cousin, who still lives across the pond," Harry nodded s

"Well," Coulson said, rubbing his hands together, "the Quinjet is fueled and waiting for us, so if you have what you need," the agent waited to receive two nods of affirmation, "then I guess we can all be on our way."

* * *

Harry, Captain Rogers, and Agent Coulson disembarked from the rear of the Quinjet onto the deck of the state-of-the-art aircraft carrier. Outside the bubble of calm that contained the trio, the deck was a flurry of activity. Well over a hundred crewmen were scurrying to and fro between the jets parked near the runway as they attempted to lock everything into place. Despite the hectic atmosphere, Harry immediately spotted the single person on the deck that looked decidedly out of place. The man was walking aimlessly across the deck, sidestepping crewmen as they hurried past, and nervously wrung his hands together as if trying to calm himself down.

Agent Coulson started to lead his two companions towards the nervous man, but they were intercepted by redheaded female SHIELD agent in a black bodysuit.

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson greeted the agent, "Captain Rogers and Lord Potter-Black," both shook the redhead's hand as they were introduced.

"Hi," her voice was flat and impersonal. She turned to Coulson, "They need you on the bridge."

"See you there," the supervisory agent nodded his farewell to the soldier and wizard before striding out towards the island which rose from the point at which the two tiered runways met.

Romanoff continued Coulson's previous trajectory as she steered the two towards the nervous man, who now stood at the flight deck's railing attempting to stave off a case of hyperventilation before it hit.

"There was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice," Romanoff directed at Rogers, "I thought Coulsonn was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" She kept a straight face, but her eyes glinted in amusement at the Captain's obvious shock.

"Trading cards?"

"They're vintage, he's very proud," She turned her head to address Harry, "And you. I can honestly say that the opinions of those in the know were rather widely divided when Fury said that he was bringing you in," Harry raised a questioning eyebrow at the agent and she explained, "About a third thought you were too dangerous and volatile to work well in a team; another third jumped at the chance to work with you; and the rest were of the wait and see opinion." Both Harry and Romanoff ignored Roger's surprise that Harry could be considered 'dangerous and volatile'.

"And in which camp are you," the wizard posed," if I may ask, Agent Romanoff?"

"I was of the wait and see variety," While she said this with sincerity, the very fact that she did so made Harry think that that was definitely _not_ her true stance on the matter based upon her previous impersonal speech patterns.

"Hmm, that's very… prudent of you," Harry inflected his words to convey that he understood that she actually was one of the ones who thought him dangerous. In actuality, Harry thought it was wise to be wary of an unknown like him, "Caution is often best in situations like this."

"Indeed."

Upon reaching the railing, Rogers addressed the nervous man in an attempt to bring an end to the silence that had followed Romanoff and Harry's awkward conversation.

"Doctor Banner?" The man finally seem to realize that they were standing next to him as he turned to the sound of his name. Rogers, offered his hand in greetings and the now identified Dr. Banner stared at it for a second before shaking it. Harry thought that the doctor had looked surprised for a moment that someone was willing to touch him.

"Oh, yeah. Hi," It seemed that everyone other than Harry had received a description of the other team members. Belatedly, it made sense, as it seemed that Harry was a last minute addition to the group, "They told me you'd be coming."

"Word is you can find the cube," Harry perked up at that. He had, of course, tried to locate the Tesseract through magic, but it was being shielded, most likely also through magic as his SHIELD file had stated that this Loki was a sorcerer. The wizard was intrigued to see how the doctor planned to scientifically track the cube.

"Is that the only word on me?"

"Only word I care about." Captain Rogers looked Banner straight in the eye as he assured the doctor. The man seem to calm slightly and gave the soldier a timid smile.

"Must be strange for you, all of this."

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar." The soldier said as he viewed the organized chaos around him.

Agent Romanoff put her finger to her ear as she seemed to receive a message through an unseen earpiece. She stepped a few paces back from the railing.

"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breath." As she finished speaking, the air craft carrier below their feet started to shake violently, causing all three men to grip to the railing in an attempt to stay upright.

"Is this a submarine?" Rogers asked and Banner's nervousness returned at full force.

"Really?" the doctor let go of the railing and resumed wringing his hands together, "They wanted me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Rogers seemed to understand what he was speaking of, but Harry still felt he was being left in the dark. All three moved to the railing in time to see a large air turbine attached to the hull of the carrier rise from the waters and begin to spin.

"Oh, no," Banner smiled at the irony, "This is much worse."

Despite the doctor's protest, it was obvious that both he and the Captain were in awe of the realization of what the aircraft carrier actually was. Even Harry grudgingly admitted to himself that, given the current technology available to the humans, he was slightly impressed.

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys and gals! I was looking at the story stats and I got excited. This story has surpassed any of my others with regards to reviews and alerts. I couldn't sleep so I just started writing last night and came up with this. Just to let you know that this week will probably not be the norm for updates. Please expect just one update a week and be pleasantly surprised if there are more.**

**Reviewer Replies:**

**Joe Lawyer: While we haven't gotten to the point where they will be revealed, I do have my reasons for Harry leaving his device in others' hands. The Tesseract is fundamentally and irrevocably tied to the ambient energy produced by the space-time continuum. Should Harry have tried to take the cube with him 1) he would not have been able to because the Cube's existence was linked to the continuous linear progression of space-time and 2) should he have overcome 1), he would be ripping the ambient energy of the universe out of the time period, causing any movement and energy in the universe would quickly reach equilibrium as it did not have that energy prolong its movement. In other words, the universe would just become one large uniform soup of energy. Why he left it in the hands of Odin? Harry had just saved then Prince Odin from an assassination attempt by his three older brothers that had just taken the life of Bor, their father. He thought Odin would immediately listen to him and hide the cube on Midgard, earth only being a crude backwater civilization back then. Odin was a boy king back then so he decided just to use it for himself until Laufey attacked Midgard and used the Casket of Ancient Winters against him that he saw how dangerous the Cube's could be should it fall into the wrong hands. As for Harry leaving it in the hands of SHIELD, he has only been back for eighteen months, a millisecond compared to his lifespan. In that time period he had set up the Vault and tracked it from its original hiding place to SHIELD. He only just found out about the agency's possession of it four months ago and was still collecting information on the agency's movements with the cube when it was stolen. Harry was bluffing with Fury. Yes, he knew that Phase 2 was being developed and that it **_**could**_** be dangerous if used correctly, but he didn't know **_**what**_** exactly they were building. As to the storyline in sync with the movie, I am sorry but it is going to follow closely until Loki is captured and from there, I am diverging.**

**Guest from Dec on Chapter 3: Thanks for bringing up the mistake about the Elder Wand. I meant for that to be his Holly Wand and for the Deathly Hallows not to make an appearance yet. I will go back to change it. As to his armor being too similar to Loki's. Yes and no. There is a reason why Loki's armor is similar and that is because he grew up on the stories of Harry and his deeds. It was, in fact, why he decided to study sorcery in the first place. No because Harry's armor has a lot less metal plates than Loki's and is a lot more rustic. If you look up Gyorin konzane scale armor, that is very similar scale rendition as I pictured the Basilisk hide, not the plate male concept Loki wore. As for the staff, a staff is more suited for battle than a wand plus a sword. We will find that in the original battle with Buri, he kept having to switch his wand and sword in his right hand to have any control. A staff is a magical and physical weapon so he could use both aspects in his fighting.**

**A/N 2: I am surprised that no one noticed (or if they did notice, that they didn't comment on it) that, in the last chapter, the three swords hanging in Harry's vault were from Odin's brothers and the plaque said that it was taken in 'mortal combat', soooo…. Yea, a little inventive backstory on my part. Could it incite Thor against Harry for killing his uncles, or was Odin part of it? Wait and find out!**

**Olorin the Maiar out!**


	5. Not Necessarily

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own anything created by Marvel Studios or Marvel Comics. I do not make money off of this.

**The Artificer**

**Chapter 5: Not Necessarily**

As Agent Romanoff led the party of four through the bowels of the ship now revealed to be the mysterious "Helicarrier" Harry had heard whispers of during his research into SHIED when he had learned that the agency was in possession of the Tesseract, his opinion of the ingenuity of these humans couldn't help but rise. As the redhead took them on a winding route around the enormous ship that was meant to confuse and disorient them about the layout of what amounted to humanity's first attempt at the replication of an Asgardian Battle-Platform, Harry glimpsed numerous bits of technology that hinted that SHIELD had been attempting to reverse engineer off-world technology for a _very_ long time. He spotted cooling couplings based off of the Jotenheimian environmental suits used in their last invasion of Migard, kevlar body suits worn by high ranking operatives (like Agent Romanoff herself) woven in the same high-tensile weave pattern used in the uniforms of the ancient Alfheim draft within the Níuvordr (Nine-guard) army, and delicate support beams in large storage bays that looked to be forged with primitive Dvergr techniques. These observations made Harry reevaluate his opinion of Fury.

When Harry had touted his knowledge of both the inner workings of SHIELD and Fury's own psyche, he was largely bluffing. After his jump back to his original time, it had taken the wizard quite a while to track down the current resting place of the Tesseract. Initially, Harry had been reduced to hunting down the old Norse legends of the Tesseract (the few that existed) and searching the sites he knew had once had an Asgardian presence. It was by luck that he had stumbled on the cube's fading seventy year old energy signature in an abandoned Asgardian repository on Nordaustlandet, the north-eastern and largely unpopulated island of the Norwegian arctic archipelago known collectively as Svalbard. From there, he was able to follow the energy trail south to an abandoned World War Two fortress which was once inhabited by the Nazi supernatural investigatory agency, HYDRA.

Finding that the same base had been captured in the war by a joint expeditionary force containing both British and American troops, the wizard had reached out to his closest (and highest-ranking) contact in the British Wizarding government, his old friend Hermione Weasley. It had been a rather tedious international floo trip (in which Senior Undersecretary Weasley hexed him silly for his self-imposed exile in America before inviting him and Teddy to a Weasley family reunion) that left him with the files detailing the movements of the joint Special Sciences Initiative undertaken by British and American governments which oversaw the Allies' battle against HYDRA. Seemingly, the Tesseract was lost when Rogers crashed a HYDRA nuclear bomber containing both Johann Schmidt and the cube into the ice-covered northern reaches of the Davis Straight between Greenland and Canada. While the Tesseract might have been lost, the interest in it was not, so Harry looked into the two international agencies, now under the purview of the United Nations, SHIELD and SWORD, the Sentient World Observation and Response Department. He thankfully struck gold with SHIELD. He was thankful that SHIELD had the Tesseract in its possession because: firstly, Col. Nick Fury seemed to actually lead his organization in an attempt to protect the continuity of all of humanity and Cdr. Abigail Brand, the leader of SWORD, excluded both mutants and magicals from her view of what was human; and secondly, SHIELD attempted to gather all the facts on a situation before intervening, whereas SWORD had an 'obliterate first, destroy all the evidence second, and ask questions third' policy towards imagined threats.

With a little more digging, mainly by perusing the minds of high-ranking United Nations diplomats during charity events using legilimancy, he learned that the Tesseract was being used by SHIELD to create items that could be used to defend humanity against extraterrestrial and extraplanar invasions in a classified project dubbed 'Phase 2'. The one diplomat from whom he derived this information, the Vice President of the UN Security Council, had only known that the items created during Phase 2 could be considered 'extremely detrimental and possibly dangerous to the continuity of the human race, should they fall into the wrong hands'.

Originally, Harry had decided to investigate what 'Phase 2' actually was before repossessing the Tesseract from SHIELD possession. While the absolute power presented by the cube had the immense potential to corrupt Col. Fury (and in turn SHIELD, itself) absolutely, the wizard's research had produced a picture of the African-American that Harry wanted to trust. Yes, Fury was a spy. In reality, Fury was _the_ spy. If you were to stumble upon one of the skeletons in his closet, the pile of bones would throw you out and slam the door in your face, and break down into hysterics at the thoughtnthat Fury would find out it wasn't being as secret as it should be. He lied; he concealed; he covered up; he made things disappear. Yes, he did these things, but he did them with _purpose_; and Harry thought that the man's driving purpose was truly the safety of mankind as a whole: mundane, mutant, _and_ magical.

Now, as Harry was being led through the Helicarrier, he stepped away from his position of wanting to trust Fury based upon the wizard's assumptions and began to believe that he had started seeing evidence that Fury could be trusted once be proved himself under pressure. Despite the great leaps and bounds in technology Fury had at his disposal from SHIELD's apparent reverse engineering of off-world artifacts, none of technology was used in an offensive manner. From Agent Romanoff's offhand comments as they traipsed the Helicarrier, Harry learned that this ship was Fury's baby, a brainchild in which Fury signed off on every detail. With the technology at his disposal, the man could have made this into an impenetrable flying battleship. Instead, he made the conscious decision to form the Helicarrier into a command and dispatch platform rather than a weapon.

When Agent Romanoff led their quartet onto the ship's bridge, Harry could see that his deduction about the purpose of the Helicarrier was indeed correct. Scanning the banks of computer stations from his vantage point on the dais behind Fury's command terminal, he quickly saw that the closest thing to a targeting system on this ship was an advanced radar linked to the carrier's air traffic control.

Harry's attention was forced away from his analysis of the Helicarrier's battle capabilities by a sudden increase in activity that accompanied the wizard's inner ear telling him that the ship had finally stopped its ascent into the sky.

"Flight rotors are disengaged from takeoff and have reached their outboard capacity!"

"Power plant is performing at capacity. We are clear!"

"All engines operating," the woman who appeared to be the ship's First Mate stated to the crewman working below her as she made her way onto the observation walkway between the banks of computers on either side of the room, "SHIELD emergency protocol one-nine-three-point-six in effect!" the officer turned to Col. Fury, "We're at level, sir!"

"Good," Fury answered, glancing on the readout on his command console, "Let's vanish."

"Engaging retro-reflection panels!" Harry glanced up at two large display screens hanging on the far side of the Bridge and couldn't help his surprise as the screens flickered through the displays of cameras monitoring the hull and runway of the ship. Before his very eyes, the entire exterior of the Helicarrier seemed to digitize before fading into a distorted reflection of the sky around it, becoming nearly invisible to anyone below.

The wizard's attention was drawn away from the disappearing ship as Captain Rogers shuffled towards Fury, the look of amazement which he had worn since the ship first rose from the water still gracing his face. Nearing the Colonel, Rogers rummaged in his pocket for a moment and passed the Director a ten dollar bill, his eyes never leaving the display which still showed the invisible ship. The one eyed man smirked as he pocketed the money but his mood quickly sobered as he moved to speak with Dr. Banner.

While Harry may have been created the Tesseract, he had always been concerned with its magical capabilities, specifically its capacity to return him to his initial point in time. So, when Banner and Fury started to speak about gamma radiation and spectrometers, the wizard was quite lost.

The wizard waited patiently for Fury to finish with Dr. Banner and for the impersonal Agent Romanoff to lead the scientist to the lab SHIELD had prepared for him. As they left, Fury finally acknowledged the artificer's presence on the Bridge.

"Potter," Fury said, dropping Harry's title as they were going to be working together, "I'm glad you came."

"Why am I here, Fury?" Harry asked. Fury opened his mouth to answer but hesitated and closed it again as if considering something. He gestured to the conference table set up on the dais behind the command console. Harry raised an eyebrow in question, but seated himself in one of the chairs as requested of him.

Fury took the chair to Harry's left, placing his palm flat on the table in front of him. A holographic screen appeared in front of the Director's seat and the man made a few adjustments to the data presented to him. He tapped one of the icons on his screen and the noises of the Bridge around them died away, only to be replaced with a low level of white noise.

"While a good number of the highest ranking officers in SHIELD know who you are, your work on this project is to only be discussed with those you are directly working with during this operation," with a swipe of his hand on his touch screen, Furry sent a document to a screen which opened on the tabletop in front of Harry's chair. Opening it, he saw a dossier containing a list of those he was able to disclose information to. At a quick glance, Harry recognized some of the names and faces. At the top were SHIELD agents, consisting of Director Fury, Agents Coulson and Romanoff, and the woman he had seen commanding the Bridge during the Helicarrier's transition to invisibility, Agent Maria Hill. Below those were consultants: 'Genius, Playboy, Billionaire, Philanthropist' (as he publicly calls himself) Tony Stark, the Iron Man; Captain Steve Rogers, Captain America; and Dr. Bruce Banner, the world's leading authority on gamma radiation and the man who, according to the file, was one of the radio-mutates who thoroughly trashed Harlem a few years ago. At the bottom of the page was a section marked _Approved After Additional Criteria Is Met_ containing three individuals: Thor, an Asgardian prince and Loki's brother, and Agent Clint Barton and Dr. Eric Selvig, respectively the SHIELD agent and scientist currently under Loki's mind control.

At Harry's nod of comprehension, Fury continued.

"While your experience with the cube is an added bonus, you are primarily here to deal with Loki, should his magic prove beyond our capabilities to confront. I know that the mind control Loki used seems to be similar to the Imperius Curse human wizards use, but our analysts not only have found major differences in the two but also seemed to come with nothing that could imply that Asgardians even have access to this type of magic" Fury seemed to consider his next words carefully before giving a sigh which, to Harry's ears, sounded slightly defeated, "We are out of our area of expertise and we need someone with experience in this area," the Director looked as if the words physically pained him.

Harry nodded and looked down at the screen in front of him. Apart from the file open in front of him, other tabs along the edges seemed to denote other files that he was granted access to. Spotting a small file labeled "Tesseract Theft Footage", he opened it with a quick tap, wanting to know what Fury's analysts were using for comparison. Watching the footage, any theories Harry had possibly explaining the mind control quickly vanished. A small, but important, detail Fury did not mention did, however, spark his interest. Finishing the short video, the wizard looked back up at Fury, who was watching him closely.

"Well," Harry said, leaning back in his chair in thought, "your analysts were right on both fronts. This is completely different from the Imperius Curse and you wouldn't have found anything in Asgardian legend about a spell like this because I don't think the magic of the spear is Asgardian." Fury quickly picked up on what Harry was implying.

"The spear's magic? Not Loki's magic?"

"Exactly," Harry nodded, "Normally, a powerful magical artifact that can be used for intent based magic needs to either be charged by a magic user in advance or draw its energy from direct skin contact of a magical being. For example," with a flick of his wrist, his holly wand appeared in his hand, "When a wizard or witch normally uses a wand, the power to cast a spell is drawn from our natural magical reserves, or core. No wizard or witch is able to only draw the exact amount needed for a spell from their core. Instead, their body naturally saturates the wand with magic until the spell bursts from the end. The magical built up within the wand is then absorbed by the piece of magical creature used as its core. This build up allows us to cast spells while wearing gloves or from a short distance away, but the wand will eventually run out of stored magic should we continue these actions without casting a spell with skin contact. If the spear had been charged, we would have been able to see a permanent dimming of the magical nexus at the center of the blade. If Loki was the one powering the spear, we would see energy travel from his hand through the handle of the spear to the nexus when he used energy blasts to destroy the banks of computers. Neither of these happened, which leads me to believe that the unfortunate third option is the reality in this case," the wizard fixed Fury with a grim stare, "I believe there is another magical being residing in the staff," Harry put away his wand and Fury blinked.

"You mean that Loki had an accomplice in the theft?"

"Not necessarily," Harry said as he opened the tab on his screen simply labeled 'Loki'. He quickly scrolled through the file until he came upon what he was looking for in an interview between Agent Coulson and Thor when said Asgardian had been temporarily in SHIELD custody. Harry skimmed Thor's description of Loki's physical appearance and let out and interested "ah" as he found what he was looking for. He reopened the footage of Loki stealing the Tesseract and zoomed in on Agent Barton's face as the mind control took effect.

"Director Fury, what happened to Agent Barton and Dr. Selvig's eyes when the spear took control of them?" Harry motioned for Fury to look at the paused frame.

"His eyes changed color."

"To which color?" the wizard asked as he cropped the frame to one side of the screen and continued the video until a close up shot of Loki's face was opposite that of Barton's.

"Black then electric blue."

"And what color are Loki's eyes?" Harry zoomed in so Loki's bright blue eyes were clearly seen.

"Blue, the same as Thor."

"Ah, but that's where your wrong. In his interview, Thor stated that his brother had _green_ eyes," the artificer pointed out and Fury finally grasped Harry's point.

"You think Loki is being controlled against his will?"

"Again, not necessarily, all this proves is that he is being influenced by the staff. We don't know if he submitted to the entity within the staff willingly or not. All I am saying is that we should take both possibilities into consideration."

"This is all well and good, but we still need to-" Furry was cut off by both of their hologram screens flashing a warning before the low level white noise was replaced by the noise of the Bridge around them.

"We got a hit!" called out one of the agents at a computer console running facial recognition. Both Director and wizard rose from their places and walked over to the dais railing to look down at the picture of Loki now plastered over the man's screen, "Sixty seven percent match. Wait, cross match, seventy nine percent."

"Location?" asked Agent Coulson from his position off to one side of the dais where he had been discussing his Captain America trading cards with their subject.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

"Captain," Fury barked and said man pinned the director with an intense stare, ready for action, "You're up!" The man nods and quickly walks out of bridge to prepare.

"Potter," Furry drew Harry's attention away from the Asgardian face now plastered across the large screens on the far wall of the bridge, "I need you to go to the containment cell we have prepared for our Asgardian friend and make sure its secure in your _own_ _special way_," Fury said, reminding Harry that they were no longer speaking privately and there were prying ears that were not to be privy to certain information.

"Agent Hill," Fury barked at his First Mate over his shoulder, "Please show Mr. Potter to the Guest Room!"

* * *

**A/N 1: Hey guys, sorry this was late by a day and a half. RL got the better of me. Term papers, finals, snowstorms, getting a 48-hour bug that left me with absolutely no energy, loosing a term paper due to a saving error and having to do 14 pages of research and rewriting in the span of seven hours, nearly breaking my neck slipping in the parking lot on some ... its been a crappy past 3 days.**

**A/N 2: I am sorry this is a cliffie, but the next possible chapter break would be when Harry meets Loki, and if I had waited to break there this chapter would still be in progress and I would be even later to update than I already am. I am also sorry about not answering reviews. I promise I will answer them in the next chapter. **

**A/N 3: Good news is that I am done with _ALL_ of my papers for this semester and will have more time to write. So probably expect the chapter about the Captain America/Loki smack down somewhere around the beginning of the weekend and the Harry meets Loki chapter on Monday.**


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